Monday, September 20, 2010

Chapter One: Are Atheists Smarter Than Most?

Ray starts out How to Know God Exists with some self-deprecating humor, describing himself (with examples) as a "klutz" and inviting us to wonder why we should heed the opinion, on a question of such high import as the existence of God, of someone who apparently can't perform simple household chores without risking death or maiming. My own problem, of course, is wondering why we should trust someone who assumes that "chance" is the only possible alternative to "design" as an explanation for biological complexity and adaption. Ray's answer to either question is that the answer really, really matters to us ... which doesn't, of course, have any terribly obvious bearing on the question of whether his particular answer is true.

Note that "design" is not just Ray's answer to why we have eyes and ears and livers and (presumably) why we plantaris tendons and GULO pseudogenes and erector pili muscles. It's his explanation for why we have refraction (and hence rainbows), gravity (and hence oceans and air -- since he's arguing that the planet itself was intelligently created, he doesn't consider gravity an explanation for why we have, e.g. planets and stars in the first place.

Ray repeats some familiar arguments in this chapter, with some familiar problems. He argues that we wouldn't expect a Coke can to form spontaneously, metal sheeting and labeling assembling spontaneously from simple molecules, and therefore shouldn't expect a banana or the person who eats one to originate that way. He doesn't really consider the implications of the fact that Coke cans are manufactured and cannot reproduce themselves (so cannot evolve by mutation and natural selection), whereas bananas and humans had ancestors and do experience evolution. He complains (or at least notes) that this argument was mocked, but doesn't seem to quite grasp why it was mocked (one hint: bananas themselves, as we know them, are results of human selective breeding).

In other cases, he does incorporate responses to arguments he's presented before. He notes, when making the "a building implies a builder, hence creation implies a Creator," that we have indeed seen architects and building contractors and carpenters and plumbers, and haven't actually seen a Being capable of making buildings (or bananas) out of nothing by sheer intellect, with no physical mechanism. But he moves blithely and confidently on: even a stone-age tribesman, he argues, would see that skyscrapers were manufactured and designed things. This might well be the case, though it would still imply an analogy between making mud huts and making skyscrapers; this would seem to me to strengthen the case for ascribing biological complexity and diversity to observed processes like reproduction, inheritance, mutation, selection, and drift.Publish Post
Ray argues that we have no reason to ascribe a cow to evolutionary processes if we can't, ourselves, make a cow (out of nothing, furthermore). But his hypothetical stone-age tribesman could not make a skyscraper, out of nothing or even out of dirt and vegetation. That does not mean that the skyscrapers were not made by beings very like the builders and designers that the tribesman had known. By the same token, our inability to explain or duplicate every detail of naturalistic origins does not imply that we are wrong to seek explanations in terms of observed, natural causes, from gravity to natural selection.

Ray offers one further argument in this introductory chapter (of which, to be sure, fully developed arguments should not be expected; that's what the rest of the book is for): atheists are a minority. In much of the world, even people who accept evolution and a natural origin for stars and worlds are a minority. How likely is it that non-creationists are right when so much of the world is wrong? Of course, this argument has its problems: four hundred years ago, heliocentrists were a minority, and ten or fifteen centuries before that, people who thought the Earth was ball-shaped rather than flat were a minority. Evidence, not mere numbers giving uninformed assent, is relevant here.

Ray varies the appeal to the wisdom of the masses with an appeal to the wisdom of geniuses: Einstein, he assures us, believed in God. Not necessarily a personal God, not a God Who inspired an inerrant Holy Bible, and especially not a God Who judged and forgave us, but Something that Einstein thought was not quite the same as the universe itself (Einstein did not want to call himself a pantheist). Oddly, Ray doesn't present us with Einstein's arguments for God (or perhaps this is not so odd, as Einstein didn't actually present such arguments), but appeals to the authority of cosmologists as he appeals to the authority of popular opinion.

Congrats on the new blog. If your posts on Ray's blog are any indication, your dismantling of his book here will be the refreshing lime wedge of reason that acts as the counterpoint to the bitter tequila shot of creationist nonsense.

He notes, when making the "a building implies a builder, hence creation implies a Creator," that we have indeed seen architects and building contractors and carpenters and plumbers....

In this case I think the skeptical response actually gets off on the wrong foot. People don't dismiss the notion that buildings could have evolved naturally on the grounds that we have seen buildings designed and constructed by humans. In fact we are quite capable of concluding that something was designed even if we never saw people designing it; before the first hoaxers came forward, for example, we hadn't seen people making crop circles. We still knew they were designed (whether by humans or aliens).

Moreover, the fact that we have seen many buildings put up through design doesn't in itself show that all of them were. What does show this is that we know concrete does not appear through natural processes and tall boxes don't appear through natural processes. But cows, of course, do appear (nowadays) through natural processes. And if theists want to insist that planets, or galaxies, or the ur-Cow must be designed, the claim has to start with an argument for why the natural processes described in cosmology and biology could not have made them.

It very well maybe, if Ray considers himself a representative of the "others" group...

P1: "...91 percent of U.S. adults say they believe in God."

P2: "An atheist is defined as someone who believes there is no God."

P3: "Are the 3 percent of Americans who claim to be atheists..."

Conclusion: According to Ray's definition of an "atheist" as someone who doesn't believe in the Abrahamic "God", and the statistic he gave, Ray sucks at math...

The actual poll is, in the manner of polls, suggestive and confusing. It found that 91% of Americans believe in God, and 87% identify with a specific religion. Six percent say that they do not believe in God, but only half of these identify themselves as "atheists," perhaps associating that word with beliefs or commitments beyond non-belief in God. About one in ten said they had "no religion," which would seem to include a few believers in God -- but not everyone who did not identify with a particular organized religion.

Presumably, there were some people who just answered "don't know" to the question. The poll had ca. a four percent margin of error, which probably doesn't account for the discrepancies but may contribute to them.

I received and perused it, as well, although when Ray first made the offer I looked the book up and read the first chapter on Google Books. Hope you don't mind if I help you review it by adding small additions to your review... ;P

The major issue I have with Chapter 1 is his constant use of the phrase "Creation" for life/the Universe/everything, and then claiming it is only logical that it must have a creator to create it, all while refusing to delve into how it must be a creation (rather than, say, a self-actualizing formation...).

Along with that, there are a couple oddities I noticed. First was the Galileo quote at the start of the chapter. For someone who bases his conversions on emotional threats of Hell and a person's fear of death, it seems odd for him to suddenly imply his God wants his followers to use the sense, reason, and intellect He supposedly gave them. Second was the comment that his wife was "made for Comfort." I just found that oddly misogynistic from someone constantly claiming the moral high-ground...

On a lighter note:"Are Atheists Smarter Than Most?"

It very well may be, if Ray considers himself a representative of the "others" group...

P1: "...91 percent of U.S. adults say they believe in God."

P2: "An atheist is defined as someone who believes there is no God."

P3: "Are the 3 percent of Americans who claim to be atheists..."

Conclusion: According to Ray's definition of an "atheist" as someone who doesn't believe in the Abrahamic "God", and the statistic he gave, Ray sucks at math...

(Sorry Steven, for deleting the comment after you responded to it. I didn't refresh the page before realizing I had some corrections and additions I wanted to apply to it...)

Steven said: "Six percent say that they do not believe in God, but only half of these identify themselves as "atheists," perhaps associating that word with beliefs or commitments beyond non-belief in God."

I figured the poll was more complex about belief than Ray implied, I was just pointing out that based on Ray's definition of "Atheists" in Chapter 1 as, essentially, "non-believers in the (Abrahamic) capital "g" God", then anyone that claimed a lack of belief in "God", whether they labeled themselves as "Atheist" or not, should be labeled by Ray as professing Atheists. Just messing with the semantics for fun...

"The poll had ca. a four percent margin of error, which probably doesn't account for the discrepancies but may contribute to them."

Probably, but I've learned not to give Ray that much credit by assuming he looked that deeply into polls for margins of error in an attempt to make sure his numbers were as accurate as possible...

I have to admit that it puzzles me that Ray seems so intent on using any theists as proof that his religion is true. Even if Einstein believed in the possibility of God, he apparently had no belief in the Christian god. Doesn't that mean that Einstein is burning in hell alongside atheists?

Ray must think that if he can prove the existence of a higher power than Christianity would be the faith that most people would choose. But if that were true, Islam, Paganism, Buddhism and other faiths wouldn't have any converts.

Summary of How Ray Comfort Argues that You Can Know God Exists

First Cause argument: the Universe cannot come from nothing, and hence must come from an Intelligent Creator

Design argument: no explanation exists or is possible for the mechanisms of life or the diversity and complexity of living things, except an Intelligent Designer

Argument from general human experience: human beings agree that some things are right and others wrong, that human beings don't live up to their own moral standards, and that human beings want something that can't be found in this world.

Argument from specific Christian experience: True Christians know God personally, and you can too if you believe.

Pascal's Wager: Ten out of ten people die, and most of them don't want to. Let your fear of death humble your pride so that you can believe and repent.

Argument from biblical information: The Bible contains facts about nature and about future events that was not naturally accessible to humans at the time it was written.